Inside the hotel where guests get a holiday and staff get a degree

It's the first hotel of its kind in Wales – where the guests enjoy a holiday while the staff study for a degree.

It's the first hotel of its kind in Wales – where the guests enjoy a holiday while the staff study for a degree.

Tenby will become the site of Wales’ first ever hotel school – where students combine grey matter with silver service – by the autumn of 2015, it has been revealed.

The new multi-million pound project at the town’s luxury Fourcroft Hotel, which will offer degrees in hospitality validated by Cardiff Metropolitan University, plans to open its doors in the autumn of 2015.

But at the same time as training and giving hands-on experience to students, the hotel will continue to trade and hopes to offer first-rate service to guests.

It is hoped the novel venture will fill a gap in the industry by turning out a host of job-ready graduates from day one of the end of their course.

Meanwhile those charged with promoting Tenby are harbouring hopes it could turn the seaside resort into a student town and bring in more year-round revenue.

If the plans come to fruition, it would be just the second hotel school in the whole of the UK – following the Edge Hotel School on the University of Essex’s site in Colchester.

Chris Osborne, who manages the Fourcroft which has been in his family for 66 years, said the idea had first been mooted a couple of years ago by the economic regeneration group the Tenby Development Trust (TDT).

He said: “There’s a development trust – a selection of interested businessmen and recent retirees to the area, all with different levels of expertise and backgrounds.

“One of them had this idea two years ago that what Tenby needs, given it’s a tourist economy, is a hotel school – a refurbished hotel of a higher offering than is on offer at this moment in time.”

According to the plan, around 90 students will be taught every aspect of hotel management from check-in to check-out over an intensive two-year period

The course has been created by Cardiff Metropolitan University and ultimately the hotel will be completely refurbished for its new purposes.

A newly-formed company or social enterprise will run the hotel school and a viability appraisal to work out the mechanics of the move is due to take place.

Mr Osborne said creating the hotel school was a “bold” move but said he had no reservations about the quality of service students, helped by experienced hoteliers, could deliver.

“I think it’s bold but I think in this economy, where so many people and businesses are in the doldrums, it needs something bold to capture the attention,” he said.

“On the one hand, it’s a learning centre so students can do their degree as they work. On the other hand, there’s the person who’s coming down, the customer, who is paying to be there.

“The level that’s going to be provided to the customer is going to be a high standard.”

TDT board member Jeremy Bowen-Rees said he hoped the hotel school would give Tenby’s economy a shot in the arm after a decade of struggles.

He said: “Our coast is regarded as being world class, and yet the town has suffered over the last decade or so from lack of investment both in money and ideas.

“We wanted to start up a venture in Tenby that would meet certain requirements. First it had to provide year-round employment. The hotel school will do that.

“Secondly it would have to boost the local economy. The Hotel School will do that by attracting new people and new money into the town.

“Thirdly we wanted the School to put Tenby on the culinary and academic map.

“We believe that through the hotel school, Tenby has the opportunity to become both a food destination and a university town.”

And news of the hotel school been greeted warmly both in Cardiff Bay and Westminster.

Angela Burn, AM for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, said: “This is the economic and skills boost which the tourism industry in West Wales really needs.”

And constituency MP Simon Hart said: “This is a great idea for Tenby and a winner in every way.

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